


The Great Rider

by AmethystTribble



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cuiviénen, Eldritch Horror Valar, Gen, This was mostly just an excuse to write creepy imagery, calling this Teen is being a bit paranoid honestly but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 01:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20055946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmethystTribble/pseuds/AmethystTribble
Summary: When, as the first of the Valar, Oromë learned of the Elves, he befriended some of them. But others ran away in fear, and were lost. This, the Valar later learned, was because Melkor had spread lies among the Firstborn.- 'Of Elves'Not far beyond Cuivienen, Miriel meets with a creature she fears is the Dark One. It's not.





	The Great Rider

Suretal- who had been the first person she held the hand of and with whom she walked unclothed- was always scolding Miriel for wandering too far. 

“The Dark One will get you,” she growled, waving a finger and trying to hide how scared she was of the possibility, “It’s a wonder you have managed this long, Mirë.” Suretal never called Miriel ‘Miriel’. Their tongues had not been quite so clever when Suretal first likened her to the gems and the jewels, and though Miriel liked how her name had changed… Suretal was slower. 

She did not seem to realize that they had driven the Dark Ones’ servants from these lands with Mahtan’s clever metals, heated and cooled again, and made sharp. The warped ones, the other two-footers that did not speak, reared back from their weapons. Miriel could walk for hundreds of trees down the western creek now, and she would not be spirited away and made vile. They had carved safety out of the lands surrounding their home, and near the edges of where their creek ended, there were fluffy bushes of white, as far as the eye could see. Miriel could tease strings and ropes from those plants, and her dresses were very comfortable and in great demand. 

Suretal said she should not go to collect supplies without others.

But Miriel went anyway.

She tip-toed through the shallows of their creek, careful not to dirty her hems- _Not the ends; the hems, the hems, she tried to tell people_\- but reveling in the sounds of the water. She kicked her legs, and kept her eyes down, trying desperately to catch sight of something shiny and pretty. Teldo had brought home an exceptionally pretty rock of bright green and yellow yesterday. Miriel would like to find her own pretty rock to add to her treasure, so that she could study the colors for her dyes- _not paint, dye._

As she studied the riverbed though, a sound crept up on Miriel. A soft clopping could be heard, a hollow thud, like what the hooved animals made. _A deer_, Miriel though excitedly, or maybe a horse. If it was a horse, Miriel knew she would surely make a fool of herself. Some of their people- and far less of the people who had settled next to the big rock, she was proud to report- had managed to make friends with the beasts. If you could catch and soothe one, it meant you would have a friend who would carry you, something the deer rarely tolerated. But the deer were still good to eat, so Miriel reached for her spear.

She crouched low, pulling her dress up and around her waist to keep dry, and kept very still. The clopping was coming nearer, further down their creek and from the other side, and the wind was blowing towards her. Miriel grinned.

The hooves emerged from the treeline, and Miriel pulled back her arm. But as she stood, she noticed at the last moment that the hooved one was not a deer, but a horse. And a horse with a rider at that. 

She tried to halt her movement. Instead, she pitched herself forward, dropping her spear into the water in the process. Miriel flailed for a moment, then stumbled backwards onto the bank again. She breathed. Then she frantically felt along her dress, checking for tears and stains and any water. None. She was safe. Miriel let out a sigh of relief.

But an odd noise, like a bray but so deep is resonated in her bones, echoed from across the creek.

Miriel looked up towards the rider.

And screamed.

The sound that erupted from Miriel’s chest barely belonged to the Quendi, it was higher and louder than any sound she had ever made before, and she could not stop screaming. But the rider before her was not of the Quendi either.

Upon a large, red horse, there sat a creature that would have defied description were Miriel not one of the people clever with words. Even as it was, she could hardly comprehend the savage, incorrect thing before her, whose feet dangled from the horse. 

It had great hairy legs, almost like a Quendë’s in shape but with the knees in the wrong direction, and its feet had long claws as wide as Miriel’s hand that curled and glinted. Above its waist sat the hefty chest as impressive as a bear’s, but covered in the scales of a snake that glimmered in a thousand different colors and winked menacingly. From its shoulders sprung wings, a hawk’s wings with a span that outgrew two trees’ lengths, and at the end of the feathery appendages protruded claws. They were caked in mud, all of the creature was caked in mud, a flaking crust only interrupted by the blood. It was all red as her own, and it was most prevalent at its maw. 

For the great beast, which sat on two legs, had the head of four-legged beast, a fox or a wolf or bear perhaps, Miriel couldn’t really tell. But it had a muzzle and great ears that twitched towards her, and when it looked with its beady, animal eyes, there was intelligence there.

Miriel screamed louder. 

It flicked the reins of the horse, and then clopped forward as Miriel scrambled backwards.

Miriel could not hear much besides her own shrill shrieks of terror, but she could feel the yip that thing made, the guttural moan that followed and made her blood quiver. It drew closer, crossing the creek. She bound to her feet as the water it splashed nearly reached her, turning and running without sight. She could see the colors flashing by, but Miriel still crashed into trees, and fell over rocks, and she was still screaming.

“Help!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “HELP!”

The clopping was growing faster, and it was growing closer.

She ran and stumbled and yelled, and Miriel could not think properly. She was trying to conjure words in her mind, but the effort was futile. She had to escape, she had to escape, and there was nothing but the burst of energy to fuel her. Not words or thoughts or hopes, just the clopping and her own screams. 

But as she ran with her heart beating too fast and her body feeling like it was on fire, a great and mighty boom made the ground shudder. Miriel made the mistake of looking back. The creature was running on four-legs. 

A sob ripped from Miriel’s throat, as she closed her eyes. Instinctively, she knew that she had already been beaten. Even as she turned her head forward and ran harder and ignored the tears clogging her throat that made it impossible to breath, she could feel it grow nearer. 

A feathered force wrapped around Miriel’s waist, and its claws ripped her dress clean open.

She was dragged back against its cold, hard chest.

Miriel began screaming again. And she kept on crying harder and harder, kicking and wiggling and pulling frantically at multi-colored feathers the likes of which she’d never seen. The claws scratched at her skin as it turned her around to face it, and she looked at its teeth, stained and longer than her face. She could already feel her throat turning raw from the screaming. Miriel went back to sobbing out small, pathetic cries as the thing stood tall upon two-legs, dragging her with it, up and up towards the impassive stars.

“No, no, no, no,” she muttered, as it made those echoing calls at her. Tightly, Miriel squeezed her eyes shut, for she did not want to see when her chest was torn into and eaten from the inside out. If the creature was so kind, that was.

Perhaps it would eat only one arm, and then drag her back by the hair to the Dark One. Perhaps this was the Dark One, and it would take her heart and twist her body, and Miriel gave another scream and fought all the harder. 

When she felt a furry warmth on her forehead though, Miriel’s eyes snapped open. She could no longer see. Instead, a feeling like her entire life had just been relieved in the matter of moments gripped her, and Miriel felt sick and ill. She feel limp the creature’s grasp as her eyes began to see color again, and she was able to look up at it’s head, drawn by movement. Miriel watched as the creature’s features twisted and changed. 

The fur upon its face turned light like hers, but lighter still; _white_ as pure snow. And it’s hair receded from the front- retreating into its skin and withering all the while- and grew long in the back; Miriel whimpered. The snout of the thing pulled back, but Miriel could only watch as its teeth warped and cracked to become flat and small. They were still caked in blood. Against her scratched and bruised skin, she could feel the soft flutter of feathers fade to something firmer and slimmer. Instead of claws puncturing her waist, fingers teased those tender areas. The intelligent eyes remained, though, cradled in a handsome brow and above a perfectly shaped nose, and those eyes were still pitch dark.

“Do not fear, little one!” the creature called in _their words_, but still at such a timber that Miriel’s heart shook. “We have been waiting for you!”

Then, Miriel’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she knew no more.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this for Finwean Ladies Week, but eventually decided it didn't really explore Miriel as a character enough. I still liked the concept though, so I finished it, and I hope you enjoyed this odd little horror (?) piece anyway. I love all comments and kudos you might feel inclined to leave! Thank you for reading either way!


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